May moves.
Not with thought.
Not with courage.
With instinct—raw, terrified, blazing.
She throws herself toward Nathel's outstretched hand just as the shadows clamp down around her ankles. They burn like frozen iron, dragging her backward toward the creature.
"No—NO!" she cries, clawing forward.
Nathel's eyes widen.
"May! Take my hand!"
She reaches—
Their fingers brush—
And the Veil screams.
A shockwave blasts outward from their almost-touch, sending cracks racing across the silver plain like lightning in glass. The creature shrieks, staggering, its form unraveling at the edges.
"DON'T TOUCH HIM!" it howls.
The shadows yank May hard, slamming her to her knees. Her fingers scrape uselessly against the ground as she slides backward. Another tendril coils around her waist, squeezing until her vision whites out.
Nathel surges forward anyway, light blazing from every line of the mark on his skin.
"Let her go!"
The creature's voice distorts—dozens of pitches layered atop each other.
"She is the key! You cannot take her—she was MADE for this realm!"
May gasps, fighting the crushing shadows, fighting the bond thrashing violently in her chest.
"Nathel—"
Her voice is barely a breath.
"Don't let me—don't let it take me."
His expression breaks.
He shoves his hand through the thickening darkness, the light around him flaring painfully bright. "I'm not losing you, May. Not again. Not ever."
He lunges—
Their hands crash together.
And everything stops.
The Veil freezes mid-collapse.
The creature chokes in shock.
The world around them falls silent—
Except for the bond.
It roars to life between their palms, golden veins spiraling from the point of contact, weaving upward, binding their wrists, their forearms, their hearts.
May's breath catches.
Nathel's does too.
The bond doesn't just connect them.
It ignites them.
Light floods through May's body—warm, agonizing, familiar. Every memory, every heartbeat they ever shared pulses through her like wildfire.
Nathel cries out in pain—no, in recognition.
The creature recoils violently.
"No," it whispers, form flickering. "NO. THIS IS NOT POSSIBLE—THE BOND IS NOT COMPLETE—"
But it is.
For the first time since they met—
May feels it.
Whole.
Balanced.
Demanding and gentle and terrifying.
Alive.
Nathel tightens his grip.
"May—look at me."
She does.
And in his eyes she sees not desperation—
but certainty.
"Do you trust me?" he asks, voice shaking with power he barely understands.
"Yes," she breathes. "I always did."
The bond surges.
The world shatters.
A golden shockwave erupts outward, tearing through the Veil like a sun exploding underwater. The shadows dissolve on contact. The crack under May's feet seals over. The sky above splits open with blinding rings of light.
The creature screams—its form shredding, peeling away from reality as if ripped from the world itself.
"YOU CANNOT LEAVE!" it howls.
"HALF-HEART—YOU BELONG TO—"
The light consumes it before it can finish.
The Veil crumples around them, folding inward like a collapsing star.
Nathel pulls May into his arms.
"Hold on to me," he murmurs.
"I am," she whispers.
The last of the realm implodes—
and together, wrapped in the bond's unbearable blaze—
they fall.